Helion Directorate
'The Helion Directorate' Drakite Wars Backing: League of Independent Nations (LIN) Motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Capital: Helios Largest City: Helios (Pop: 6,102,029) Official Languages: English, French, Irish, Swedish Government Type: Republican Directorate Population: 320,000,000 Total: 320,000,000 Economy: Social Liberal/Socialist Major Exports: Natural resources (Iron, Steel (See below), Metals), Genetic Technology, Wine, Potatoes, Cultural and Intellectual Produce (Movies, music, books, history), Medical Products Major Imports:'' Natural resources, raw materials and high-tech technological products.'' Currency: Credits and Social Credits 'Geography and Environment' The geography of the Directorate is very varied, even though it is not massively large. Based on both a section of mainland, coastline and a considerable number of islands geography varies from the islands, which are lightly wooded, grassy with the occasional large hill in the middle, to the coast which is quiet temperate, (and in the south very temperate, almost Mediterranean) while as you go further inland, and north, the geography changes rapidly to dense forests and woods, larger and larger mountains towards the centre and north, quiet boggy in sections but with some plains as well. The far north is very heavily wooded, mountainous and rugged. The far south, and south eastern coast are very moderate, great for wine and olives. 'Government' The Directorate is split, like most countries, into three parts. The Executive, Judicurary and Legislature. However, there is a lot of difference between the manner in which elements of this government run, and the manner most governments run. First, the Legislature. Called the Assembly, it is filled with 250 Senators, elected from the 165 département spread across the country, and 85 people randomly chosen from the populace (To be chosen one must fit a number of pre-requisites, and while taking your seat can be delayed for up to three years, one must eventually take their seat for a term). They do the majority of the governing, and the three main political parties (The names would be meaningless, so I shall refer to them by their political outlook) are the Socialists, Social Liberal and Bonaparists. It is rare for one to have over half the vote at any one time. ---- The Assembly is structured quiet differently to other nations, in that while there is 'government', this government is not the Executive (Per-say), and can have most of their decisions overruled by the Executive. The Executive are 20 Directors. The system of Directors is rather complex, in how they are chosen and what their role is. I shall deal with both, one after another. First, the Directors are not elected. Instead, their ranks are filled from five sources: The government at the time may choose four Directors who serve out until the governments term finishes, three Directors are randomly chosen from the populace (Far stricter pre-requisites than to be a Senator), four Directors are semi-permanent with the position usually being filled by the choice of the retiring Director (With the support of the Assembly. More on this later), four Directors are chosen from the Intelligentsia (Intellectuals, scientists etc) by peer-review and five are chosen from what are called the 'five cornerstones of society' (By peer review): One member of the medical service, one person from the legal service, one teacher, one military officer and police officer. --- The powers available to Directors vary depending on the type of Director they are. I shall deal with each in turn. The governmental Directors, due to their relatively (When compared to the other Directors) short terms of office have less power than would be expected for their positions in the government. The four governmental Directors are usually the four leading members of the political party with the majority of the Assembly, and will oversee the Home Office, Foreign Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Treasury. The three random Directors form three out of the five members of the Public Oversight Committee, who in conduction with Assembly have the responsibility of overseeing the entire political system and government, and have considerable powers of investigation and the ability to remove (Sometimes needing the support of elements of the Assembly) almost anyone from positions of power. --- The semi-permanent positions are the Ministry for Intelligence, the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry for Trade, Economy,Industry and Business and the Ministry for Transportation and Infrastructure. Each of these Directors have control over their respective ministry, and must obey to an extent the commands of the government, however they are still legally and politically independent and truly only answerable to the Assembly, the Public Oversight Committee and the general public (who can force a referendum on forcing the resignation of any member of the political system if they get 1/10 of the current population to sign document stating their unhappiness with him or her). --- The four Directors from the Intelligentsia are split into two. Two of them are on the Public Oversight Committee, while the other two jointly control the Ministry for Science, Research and Higher Education. The remaining five Directors, chosen from their respective careers, are in charge of the Ministries which oversee their areas of expertise (The military officer in charge of the Ministry for Defence, the doctor in charge of the Health Ministry, etc) --- Directors have numerous other powers, which you can find out out about by asking me (I could write a lot more on this political system) --- 'Demographics' The demographics of Helion are made up a number of the ethnic and cultural remnants of countries, almost all European. The main ones are Ireland, Britain and France, with considerable and large sections of Nordic countries, and a considerable minority of Canadians. This has given the demographic nature of Helion a unique flavour, with all the ethnic identities managing to mix while remaining separate, as part of the multicultural policy adopted by Helion, based upon the very successful policy of Britian. For the most part, the country is split into areas populated by one population in majority, and areas where they all mix. --- One of the major exports and international influences of Helion is its music, art and culture. Unlike most of the modern countries of the world, Helion has kept alive cultural traditions dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. French culture is alive and well, as is Irish, British and all the other cultures that made up modern Helion. This has made it a very, very popular tourist destination, and is one of, if not the cultural powerhouses in the modern world. --- Education, Medicine and Public Services: Helion has inherited the Nordic and French traditions of heavily socialized medicine, education and transport and offers world class standards of all, paid for by an intelligent tax system based upon the highly successful system's of Sweden and a number of other European nations. One of the distinct elements of the Helion system of public services has been called "Social Credits" {C The idea behind it is simple: All citizens of Helion have the right to a very good level of medical care, education and general welfare when they need it. However, serving the state should be rewarded. This gave rise to the system of social credits, that takes a number of forms. The first and most simple way of thinking of it is that its almost like a second currency. Higher levels of welfare can be accessed using it, and it is earned in a variety of ways. The first way is by working as a public servant, be that in the civil service, military, police or any other government run institution. Those who work for the government and then paid less wages than might be expected of such a state as Helion, however the difference is made up for in social credits, allowing employee's of the state to avail of a higher standard of welfare for themselves and their family in a number of forms. The next way it functions has been labelled as ingenious: In order to deal with the perceived and also real problems of long-term unemployed people draining state assets with no returns, Helion instituted a three part system to assist in dealing with the jobless. The first is that for every job they refuse without valid grounds, their welfare is reduced, until it reaches a set level at which they have to appear before a judicial committee and explain why they have not taken any work offered. If their excuses fail to live up to expectations, their welfare can and likely will be removed. The second part of the system is that those who seem to genuinely have fallen on hard times, are attempting to increase or change their skill-sets in order to find work are assisted heavily by the government, and earn social credits as they are educated. Another element of the system, the third part, is that does not working who are deemed viable for the scheme must take part in public works schemes, such as construction or other public services in order to avoid welfare cuts. The final part, the second section of this scheme, is that those deemed viable may be offered jobs within the public service, namely in the military, or if they have private sector skills such as mechanics or architects, could also be recruited to the public sector version of these jobs. Economy and Sciences: The economy of Helion is heavily industrialized, however it is industrialized in a manner different to most countries. Multi-level insutrial complexes make up the majority of the output of Helion, and a considerable number of these (Mainly those to do with military technology) are based underground, partly as a result of Helion's paranioa when it comes to foreign countries. The industrial output of Helion is concentrated mainly on products for domestic consumption, which are protected by a number of limited tariffs on foreign produce. However, in order to compete with the high level-high cost of Alperia products, and the low-level low cost of TWP's produce, Helion aims at a mid-level of good quality, sturdy and reliable products for the civilian and government market. The main unique industrial product of Helion is special Belifin Steel. Although not up to the standards of Alperia or Infor, Helion is still a leading member of the world's scientific community. They take a different approach to it than most other countries, however. While they still pursue most of standard, usual forms of science, they do have a speciality: In a similar fashion to Alperia, Helion scientists and philosophers seek to transcend basic humanity, and the tool with which they have attempted to accomplish this goal is genetic enhancement. However, it is very very different from that of Infor, who seem to the majority of scientists within Helion to just want to create the most disgusting monstrosities possible. {C Instead, the goals and results of Helion genetic enhacement can compared very easily to those of Alperia, and it is useful to use Alperia as the watermark. However, it not 'one for one' by any means, and the nature of the alternations make direct comparison hard. Its still easy to have roughly exchangeable levels of enhancement. One could call Helion and Alperia two sides of the same coin, one pursuing their goals mainly (Though not by any means entirely) by mechanical and robotic means, while the other pursues very similar goals with genetics. {C An average male Helion Citizen aged 40 would have a biological age in the 20s-30s (Achieved by a variety of genetic enhancements that slow ageing and increase the body's base levels of physical ability). Will have multiple basic genetic enhancements that most if not all the population have by the age of 4: A dramatic increase in strength, speed, brain power, memory and lung capacity among others. They will also be almost completely immune to most illness's, and have a vastly stronger bone structure. Cloned organs are rarely needed due to the low levels of organ failure among people, although its still possible for some who take part in this as a result of sudden catastrophic failure, and the medical system can create such organs when needed. {C Most people of this age will also have one to a few 'more exotic' enhancements, such as the ability to see in the dark, the ability to breath underwater or the ability voluntarily shut down numerous organs (Very helpful in achieving a near death/comatose state, the person can then return to normal at will) and there are a wide range of other exotic enhancements, however the majority of the much higher level stuff usually military or police. {C In recent years a vast quantity of work has been done on biological redundancy and healing, with people having the ability to recover at much faster rates from injury, exhaustion or dehydration and to survive a lot worse than normal humans with improved biologic systems. There is also a lot of ground-breaking work being done in the area of biological, or organic computers and computing parts that could be combined with humans, and an ever rising number of the average populace are taking part in this new enhancement besides the already high take up within the military and police. {C Foreign Policy: {C There are three parts to Helion Foreign Policy. Originally, the first one was a long-standing tradition of neutrality, as taken by many Nordic countries and Ireland. However, in recent years and decades it has become more and more obvious to population and government of Helion that policy will not work in modern times. However, when forced to pick a 'side' it soon became clear to Helion just how bad the options were. The GSC was little more than a useful tool to allow Alperia to better control its puppet nations and enforce its will, and clearly allowed Alperian exceptionalism to flourish. On the other hand, the Anti-GSC and latter, the IP were simply reprehensible war criminals, mad men and those seeking to drive humanity into the abysses. {C And so until the creation of the League of Independent Nations, Helion attempted to stay out of any conflicts that took place. However, Helion has recently (As of shortly before joining LIN) adopted a new philosophy of Foreign Policy: They will remain neutral and stay out of any conflicts, unless asked to intervene, UNLESS they feel that Helion's sovereignty or its rights as a nation were being violated, at which point no means were marked off for use to restore said sovereignty and rights. This has opened a sort of Pandora's Box as it is no longer clear when and when not Helion believes it within their rights to intervene, leading to intelligent world leaders to avoid actions that could lead to conflict without meaning for such an outcome. {C The second part of Helion's Foreign Policy is the manner in which they exert the most of their control and will upon the world: Diplomacy and Intelligence. I shall deal with these one at a time. Helion has one of, if not the largest Foreign Service staffs on the planet, with literally thousands of Helion's being employed by the Foreign Office in some form or another, and with Helion Embassies in every country in the world, as well Consulates in many cities around the world. Helion has proved time and again to be an impartial party in most international affairs, making their involvement in diplomacy often wanted in order to offer an objective element to discussion and debate. {C Then, we reach intelligence. Helion is strongly believed to have the largest Intelligence organisation in the world, in terms of numbers employed and government granted budget. The policy of the main agency, the Secret Intelligence Service, is "Semper Occultus" or "Always Secret" and very little information about them or their actives is officially known. However, there are rumours by the ton, the most believable of which are that SIS believe in 'keeping on eye' on all nations of world, friendly, hostile or indifferent. They actively infiltrate any organisations where it is believed they could be useful being. They are said to actively promote and protect the interests of Helion aboard, and there are plenty of conspiracies of people being 'removed' who stand in the way of furthering Helion's future. The final part of Helion's Policy is the simplest: The massive amount of culture they export. Helion doesn't, and doesn't need too, actively use this tool to do anything besides promote Helion as being an open-minded, liberal and accepting country. Military: {C The military forces of Helion are based very much upon quality over quantity, although no where near to the extent that Alperia has taken that description. The military believes strongly in a number of idea's of war (See below) and their military shaped to accommodate that. The size of the Helion's standing military is roughly 7 million, including sailors, airmen and support staff, with a reserve of around another 10 million. {C Military Doctrine: {C The military doctrine of Helion can be summed up with one word: 'Asymmetry'. The idea is simple; for every strength, there is a weakness. For every, challenge there is a solution. And for every military, there is war it cannot hope to the win. In the case of Helion their military command aims for that horrific 'impossible war' to be every war Helion's enemies fight against them. Helion military command knows that unless they where willing to sacrifice everything, total victory would be unlikely when faced with a lot of modern nations. However, it is a lot less difficult to simply make the conflict so difficult, so unrewarding and generally morale sapping of the enemy army and civilians that the hostile government sues for peace. With this in mind, the Helion army is split in three. The first section which makes up 1/2 military, is the basic 'normal' military. These are the marines, the army, the navy. They are all heavily genetically altered, utilise advanced combined arms military tactics and work within 'combined-arms forces' that consist of joint Airforce, Navy and Army Divisions. They use power-armour and power suits when it is needed, but are heavily trained in order not to rely on them too much. As you will see below, this section can be reconfigured at will depending on the conflict. The next section is the special forces section, making up 1/4 of the military. These consist of everything from the Special Air Service, to the Paratroopers and Long Range Reconnaissance Unit. More controversially are the Dust Devils, Urban Commandos Jungle Regiment. Each of these special forces are trained to know and make their respective environment their own. When and if Helion gets involved in a war in one of these environments Advisor's from these Regiments and the AWD will work together to re-configure the Special Forces and normal military to make best use of the area they are fighting in. {C Why these three military formations are so controversial is their well know 'open-attitude' to actions that could be, and likely would be considered terrorism in other countries. For example, the Urban Commandos would happily utilise destruction of civilian power grids and inciting riots to confuse and annoy their enemy, whom they can pick off at will as they attempted to restore order. {C The third and final section of the military is the Asymmetrical Warfare Division, made up of the remaining 1/4 of the military and the most controversial by far. Very secretive by nature, they are based upon their motto: "Accommodandam Aut Mori", aka Adapt or Die. They are known to be as close to an intelligence agency as they are a military formation. One of the few pieces of concrete information about them is that they have some of the world's most advanced stealth technology. They are believed to have 'plans' for all possible outcomes, or conflicts, which they constantly update. They are known to have a large section whose entire job is to study other countries militarises and devise strategies to defeat them. They are also believed to have the feared Documents X and Y in their possession. Rumoured government plans for what to do during the possible occupation of Helion or friendly countries respectively, they are supposedly based upon the idea of a continuous, non-stop insurrection against the foreign occupiers based around the three pillars of Resistance (Peaceful civilian and not), Insurgency and Direct Action (Up and including a systematic bombing campaign, or the like). With the support of a modern military power, with numerous genetic abilities at their finger tips it is completely unknown how exactly such a conflict would play out, besides it likely being very,very bloody. Actual concrete military numbers and figures will come laters. Category:Drakite Wars Category:League of Independent Nations